No(t) Normal

This is not a reaction to Kamala Khan's final episode, but it is about some reflections of mine on what could be done for a better local academic environment. This post is prompted by an incident that seems to put me (again) in bad light. 

Let me begin by saying that I do not consider myself as special, devoid of weakness (just as human as everyone else), but by the Grace of God that I am on a path that very few Malaysians would take. So when a senior university management once retold a story that often some staff can't accept what has happened to them, perhaps indicating subtle questioning of the sixth tenet of Islamic beliefs. I do concur with this view provided that it doesn't stop there. One tries to move on to a better desired plane of existence with cautiously treading all the perturbations along the way. Indeed, to each is their own journey with whatever baggage that one carries from the past. To this, I'm particularly disappointed with some 'leaders' who discounted the variability of an individual's journey and tries to model everything according to their own experience. To add further disappointment, in one talk that I have attended, a senior guy seems to suggest that one is useful if one is used by their leaders (I could not believe my ears then, since this opens the floodgate of inappropriate manipulation and powerplay). Again, these are just a few instances where I had to personally disagree with my superiors (not voiced though), but in most other things I will be happy to play along with what they have decided.

Let me retrace my beginnings. I come from an average Malay family with my father being a chief clerk in a district office and my mum a housewife. Due to stereotypes, there seems to be an ingrained belief that we (average Malay) are not as good as others and we need to work harder to excel. I had no idea what it is like to be a university academic and were not exposed to Olympiads or anything similar. I only get to know these from my readings of the lives of scientific luminaries. My route to academic life is essentially accidental. My international exposure had brought me to the understanding that this average Malay is not as bad as the stereotypes that had been placed in our minds. Having said that, I certainly am not disillusioned to think that one can reach the level of scientific luminaries that one reads or observes. Certainly, hard work and better opportunities are needed. On science, I had chosen the theoretical physics path only when I was in third year of undergraduate studies. It was strange to me then, why I was not being made aware of all these subjects. Soon enough, I became passionate about theoretical physics. I relied much on intuition gained while I was in my third and fourth (Honours) years of undergraduate, when dealing with abstractions in mathematics and physics.

When I joined the university, I was determined to set up a scientific ecosystem that I wished I had in my younger years. Little did I know that I would be facing rough waters. As a start, when I joined the department, I was already being told that one theoretical physicist will be enough (and to think then, there was another theorist but he opted for early retirement several years later). When I came back from my PhD studies, I was sent off to the Bintulu campus and spent around three semesters there. On coming back to the main campus, I was asked why am I back (immediately felt that I'm not welcomed). When I invited a well-known scientist from DAMTP, Cambridge and tried to organise talks in the department, the same person mentioned that this is my guest and not the department's. As much as I wanted to forget this incident, I just can't. So when I was invited by Prof. Lodhi to help form a theoretical laboratory in ITMA, it was easy for me to say yes. It was then, I was introduced in a serious way to management. When I chaired the first meeting for the lab, Prof. Lodhi made the remark that the meeting went well (I guess, than expected). When we got a physical space for the lab, a professor made a remark right to my face that it was a waste of resources. Again, another event that I've wished to forget but I can't. Years later due to restructuring exercise of the university, I found myself landing in another institute.

I moved on as usual and learned to work in INSPEM as I know how. Being a theorist, I thought I could fit well in the mathematical institute but as a person not from the maths department, there are instances when one felt being a stranger at home. Still, I was open to interactions with many mathematical scientists, both local and international in many different areas (beyond my interest). With some, we discuss how we could progress as a mathematical institute and others confide with me what could potentially be problems. There too, I have learned how things are discussed at a higher level in the university, some of which are pretty pedantic (more than I have imagined). In some sense, nothing had me prepared for these but I learned what I could. In the course of learning how to manage the institute, I have been given many different labels by some individuals (no names here): unprofessional, weak leader, tyrant (this label was really a surprise and seems to contradict the one before) and unstable. It is perhaps the last one that had long lasting effect on me. At one point, I thought I had overstayed my welcome there and coupled with my declining health (often job-related), I finally sent a letter of resignation and made way to younger leaders. In doing so, I have decided not to be part of management or decision-making related committees (be in the institute or department) and in a way leaving the younger generation to chart their own futures with no interference from me. I even stop 'chairing' our group activities e.g. EQuaLS or even our private QuEST meetings. Yet, it seems I have been requested to be in some committees or boards (not my decision). I have declined many requests and with existing ones, I have reiterated my desire to leave. I wish to be left with my own scientific pursuit. Indeed, I have avoided people so that I will not be reminded of negativities (office politics, betrayals, smear campaigns and what-nots). Whatever people think of me, these are their judgment calls (not necessarily agreeing to them myself - there is always two sides of a story), but I have my own too. Personally, I think our university has changed a lot by circumstances or design (just like the rest of the world) and some will have me disagreeing strongly (and usually agreed upon by others but only privately). I look forward to my retirement so that I can start afresh a new phase of life.

In this mood, I prayed hard for peace of mind and ease of affairs during last Friday prayers.

وَجَآءُو عَلَىٰ قَمِيصِهِۦ بِدَمٍ كَذِبٍ ۚ قَالَ بَلْ سَوَّلَتْ لَكُمْ أَنفُسُكُمْ أَمْرًا ۖ فَصَبْرٌ جَمِيلٌ ۖ وَٱللَّهُ ٱلْمُسْتَعَانُ عَلَىٰ مَا تَصِفُونَ

(Yusuf:18)

'Eid-ul Adha 1443

We celebrated 'Eid-ul Adha for the Hijri year 1443 last Sunday. Our family were all here on the Friday night before. However my second son was on duty on the 'Eid day itself. So we did not manage to get a group photo on the 'Eid day itself and had to wait for Monday to have us altogether back again. We did have our modest celebratory 'Eid meal on the evening the day before. Reflecting on the theme of sacrifice for this 'Eid, whatever I have done are rather small (much better for others to tell if there is anything worth telling), but I should say something on the sacrifice that my family made towards my own personal life. My other half essentially forego her ambition to be a medical specialist to allow me to focus on my own academic career. My children's sacrifice is probably through my (bad) neglect for being a good father and be there for them all the time, providing a good life. They really deserved better. I do wish it could have all been different but we are thankful on whatever we already have.

Come Monday, my two sons and other half went to jog at a park (with dinosaur statues) in Seremban Heights. Here are some photos of them.

After their morning jog, we had our group photo session for this 'Eid.

Today (Wednesday), my second son is back on duty in BP Glenmarie in Shah Alam and will be staying in a friend's place for some temporary period. Before this, he was stationed in KLIA but after the pandemic, some staff are relocated back to the headquarters. So he actually came back last Friday to be with us for 'Eid. I have also taken leave today in order to send my youngest back to college in UiTM, Jasin. We had our lunch there just now (trying to have a taste of the food he is having there).

Just before 'Eid, my other half brought a new cat home, given to us by Lofa's original owner, knowing that my other half misses Lofa so much. We named her Cici (after various names tried) and she has yet to get used to our home.

Today is also the day that my mum left us 13 years ago. Missed her so much. Here are my favourite pics of her with my family.

She was with us until the day she left. We had a maid looking after her until we can no longer afford one. Wished that I could have provided her a better life. Here are the two pics of my parents that I have always kept in my wallet. May Allah reunite all of us in jannah.

July Has Arrived

Another month has passed and on my part, I see little changes and this worries me. 

Last week, we had our final week of teaching for the semester. On Thursday was my last class for Special Relativity. The class decided that we should take some photos for memories. Here they are:

The thought of this could very well be my last class in UPM, sort of made me emotional. Officially, I was still being given two courses next semester namely Mathematical Methods in Physics and Statistical Mechanics. Given that the new semester starts in October and my retirement is due in December, I will only have around two months of teaching if so, given I will be finishing off my leaves before retiring. I have been talking to my younger colleagues if I can be relieved from these teaching duties, mainly because I want to finish up certain things before I leave e.g. graduating my current two PhD students and one MSc student. Let us see how this goes but at the moment, I consider myself still having classes next semester.

Just yesterday, I was in three sessions of the undergraduate final year project proposal presentations. These are indeed my last proposal seminar as an internal panel evaluator. I will not be around when these students finish up their projects and present their final seminar. Photos taken are given below:

Also, I have replied to the warning letter issued regarding my research report (the need to make a second correction in the online system). I will have to spent some time working on these together with the exam gradings in the comin one or two weeks. I also need to write an external examiner report for a private university this coming weekend. I have a few theses to read from my own students and others. There are already meetings lined up in the next two weeks. I hope it is clear, I am not idle all these times, though I yearn for some peace of mind. I will probably write on this in forthcoming posts.

Varia: Early Days and Changes

After losing Lofa, loved by everyone in the house, brought me to a whole lot of deeper thinking. The more urgency I need to care for my family and for my own self. The wrinkles that appeared on my hands and legs are signs that I'm running our of time (am grateful to understand this). If my body grows physically weaker, I do hope my mind becomes clearer and wiser in thoughts. I hope I can go before I grow senile or become a burden to my family.

Having gone through much experience as an academic, I thought I should share my thoughts here and it doesn't matter if they are ignored. Much of the things I do or say have been ignored in the past, so there is nothing new in this but I do note certain people (usually beyond the place I work) do seem to listen to what I have to say. By saying this, I'm ever watchful on the things I do physically or in social media, will not be for me to seek popularity but for these actions to be considered as my good deeds.

Let me go far back in the early days of me joining the university. At the time, my thoughts were that things are pretty relaxed with activities focusing mainly on teaching. Research were probably centred on certain individuals who have started their labs and groups. At the time, I wished things to become more exciting as a scientific community with a lot of academic discussions. Tried to initiate reading groups but with varying interests, these did not last long. That drove me to just focus on my own students and build the group of one's own. The formation of the theoretical lab in the institute, has helped to expand the group much. It seems that I have attracted quite a number of students from outside UPM (see list here) and within UPM, there are a few students that went on to do their graduate study with me, but most UPM students tend to run away from theoretical physics (even those that took up final year projects with me). Alhamdulillah, today we do have a sizable theory group in the department. Each of my younger colleagues are now pursuing their own research directions. I do still hope though some of the research directions I have started, will still be continued to a certain degree, even if they are difficult.

Management-wise of the early days, I do remember participating within small workgroups and committees (pre-ISO days) to discuss what can be improved. One of the mantra those days is that we have good aims and projects but we do poorly on monitoring. Then came the ISO-days with the initial promise of we only document what we normally do. But we have gone way past that (unfortunately) and now we are forced to do more than what we normally do, in the name of continual improvement. So, in this sense, we have swung to the other monitoring extreme of controlling what we do. I do know when we first started some of these documentations, we have good reasons to maintain since some of the older records tend to get lost. For instance, the document of minutes of meeting are important when tracing the reason of why certain decisions are made. Lecture notes/test questions are kept so that future academics may be able to use them for at least historical purpose. Some of what I have done e.g. for test questions, have been adopted by the Faculty (though I must say, I don't expect people to follow the way that I do strictly since I do not consider them to be formal publications of any sort). See picture below for the example of bilingual test (English in italics since Malay is the official language) with marks at the end of each question (with some changes, we are now expected to follow this strictly). This documenting intent, to me, has somewhat changed, subject to the mercy of the auditing committee. There is already a threatening atmosphere for those who 'fail to comply' to what the auditors report. Not sure whether this is the type of atmosphere we want to keep.

In those early days, we were told that meetings are made to make decisions. Any lengthier discussions are best relegated to workshops of (trusted) subcommittees to look into details, whose output only to be presented (briefly) in the main meeting later - and best to have the report earlier for people to at least glance. This is what I have done at ITMA for instance (being responsible for publication committee) and partially in INSPEM. I noticed a lot of the meetings today tend to focus on reports and not decisions to be made. Our understanding in the early days (at least the way I was taught), one should be more prudent on the time and energy spent by so many people in a large meeting (analogous to a congregation in the mosque for Friday prayers). Being part of the management before, I can attest to that I have contribute a significant portion of my life to be in meetings and in many, I consider myself mainly as quorum fulfilling member. Given this, can we do better with our time?

A lot of things in my early academic life includes the aspiration of being a good Muslim scientist. Bought a lot books on religion beyond the books that I have in science. Having seen how academics work nowadays, I am no longer sure about the scientist part anymore. A lot of what I see today thrives on ego but yet the religious part of me tries to deflate it. Can we really harmonize this? Is the picture of an academic being a deep thinker and wise, no longer tenable? Some of these have me wishing to retire earlier (unfortunately).

Lofa

Yesterday was a sad day for all of us. Our favourite cat Lofa left us. She was having difficulty breathing that morning and was in my room. I was marking my students' test papers and she came and slept on them. My other half decided to bring her to the clinic after lunch. Little did we know that was the last we saw her. About an hour (or less), the clinic called my other half that our cat is dying. We brought her home to bury her in the back yard.

Lofa was probably the most intelligent and most active cat that we have. She was very observant of what we do and once would like to open a door to one of the rooms by reaching for the handle. We got her (given by someone) sometime in February 2021. These are the earliest pics of her.

Here she is with the 'triply punctured sphere':

She likes to explore everything she could (see pics below).

Once we brought her outside and let her go climb (unafraid) a tree in front of the house, almost looking like a koala bear.

Below are videos of Lofa exploring the fan, washing machine and the curtain to my son's room.

Here's Lofa in a group photo.

Lofa with my other half:

Being super-adorable, my other half sometimes dressed her up:

Just a day before she left, my other half put up the packing plastic near a chair in our living room as she begins to isolate herself from others.

She was the only cat in the house who is not afraid to go on the treadmill. The first video was taken when she was still healthy. The second one was taken in late May this year, after she recovered from respiration problems.

She started to become unwell only sometime in April where initially she had respiratory problems and then it was detected that she had a swollen heart besides the problematic lungs. It was sad for all us to have her leave that early. She will be missed by all of us. My son made up this video in her memory.

Goodbye Lofa and rest well.